European Affairs

I shall be brief in order to allow the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) to speak. I was in Committee earlier, but since I have been in the Chamber all the Labour Members who have spoken represent what I would call the traditional Labour view, rather than the view of new Labour. Although I did not hear my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson), I know that he made a ripping good speech and said what I would like to have said. I shall make three quick points. I spent last Friday evening with good friends at the annual presentation of the Stroud and district skittles association, of which I am a well known advocate. One of my friends there, who is well into his 70s, had to admit, with some shame, that for the first time in his life he had not voted Labour in an election. I know that he is a regular voter because I keep an eye on him. He did not say how he had voted, but he said that he did not vote Labour because he felt robbed, as we had failed to deliver on the referendum on the Lisbon treaty. It was as simple as that. He felt that the party could no longer be trusted. Although he finally said that he would vote for me, until we are trusted on that there will be a huge divergence between the support base of the Labour party and what the party and members of its Front-Bench team stand for. Until we overcome that, we will be in grave difficulties. My second point is that the Labour party did so badly in the European elections because, yet again, a totally alien electoral system was foisted on us. The closed list system has no history that makes any sense in this country, and I know that on polling day many people were confused about the length of the list of people and parties for which they could vote. The system's antecedents are alien to this country, and we must ditch it. We loved the Justice Secretary's explanation of the d'Hondt system, which kept many of us riveted during the most boring of those Electoral Commission debates that led up to the introduction of the new electoral system. However, it is wrong, it has been proved to be wrong and it has cost this party dear. My third point, on which I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), is about the anger felt on the Labour Benches. At the very time that socialists should feel that the capitalist system has a huge question mark against it, the greatest losers in the recent elections, and those who stand to be the greatest losers in the national elections, are on the left. The reason why the left is losing is, quite simply, that our electorate do not believe us on economic policy, and that is because we have fastened ourselves to the mast of the European Union. Until we regain some credibility with our electorate on that issue, they will continue to vote for other parties, and not even for the main Opposition.